Country Living Sister shows me the perils of answering the phone
It was shortly before 8am on Wednesday last week. There I was, lounging in the PJs, smoking a fag and drinking from a good strong cup of tea at the kitchen table, listening to Morning Ireland and the kids squabbling in the living room. All was right with the world until the mobile rang.
No-one rings at that time of the morning to tell me they’ve won the Lotto or found the man of their dreams. I looked. It was Country Living Sister. I toyed, momentarily, with the idea of not answering the phone, but I knew that no-one would be ringing at that ungodly hour unless there was something serious going on.
I answered, with some trepidation about what terribly disastrous news she was going to impart. Immediately, I asked her what was wrong. ‘Wrong?’ she said, ‘sure nothing is wrong. I’m ringing for a chat’. I heard the loud snap of a trap being sprung. For the next 23 minutes, during which I, and paramedics I think, like to call the ‘Golden Hour’ because of its importance to overall outcomes (such as getting to work and school on time), the Country Living Sister told me everything about everything.
She doesn’t ask questions. She poses rhetorical conundrums to which only she knows the answer. For example: ‘What are you doing with the kids during the holidays?’ This is followed by the reply, from her: ‘Ach, you will get a few days here and there with them’ and ‘Is your fella looking forward to starting his new job?’ followed a nanosecond later by: ‘Ah, I suppose he is, of course’, also from her.
I stood for those precious life-saving minutes, looking at my hair, which was like a whin bush and the face like a melted 99. Time was ticking on and I had to get ready for work and get the kids to school. I intervened and, I don’t know how, perhaps it was at the wrong moment, but like ten seconds later, I had somehow managed to be appointed Chief Organiser for her and the Posh Sister’s weeins’ double Christening, which is supposed to be taking place in August, if I can get my act together before then. Not like there’s 50 people relying on me.
Remember the snap of the trap being sprung? That other whooshing sound was the net being thrown around me before I was dragged down the road that, I swear, leads to that most desolate place, a Hiding to Nothing.
That’s what happens when I haven’t had my customary two cups of cha and three fags in the morning. Bad things occur. And to top it all off, she asked me what time did I want her to come around on Saturday because she was coming up from ‘ The Country’ to see the Ma with the two kids. ‘Sure any time at all’, I said, slapping on the foundation and brushing the hair with the phone.
Country Living landed on Saturday at the very moment the Lads and I were sitting down to our usual weekend lunch - hot dogs. I swear the HP sauce had not landed on mine before the car pulled up and she was at my side, saying: ‘ Oh, don’t be worrying about us’. Her Lad who’s only, like, three, was eyeing my sausage so I gave it to him. No sooner had the lunch been gobbled than the Country Living Sister said: ‘ Where do you want to start?’ She meant the cleaning. She rooted in the cupboard under the sink, pulling out cleaning materials I didn’t know I had. She started in a place you wouldn’t immediately think - the pictures on the wall in the living room, while I loaded up the dishwasher. ‘ When was the last time these were cleaned?’ she hollered. I muttered something about not really remembering. She marched out to show me the black on the cloth.
‘If you give these a wipe every week . . .’ That became the mantra for the afternoon as she whizzed around, blitzing the house like never before. If I gave it all a ‘wipe every week’, I thought, I wouldn’t have time to answer the phone at eight in the mornings! (I’m on leave for the next two weeks).